On the colour of white
Tuesday, Jul 1 2014

We gardeners tend to chase after the more difficult colours: blues, true reds, dark almost black shades. White, however, is rather overlooked. Yet, there are many ‘white’ flowers which aren’t white at all: Goatsbeard, most astilbes, most roses, elderberries, lilies, hydrangeas, etc. Varying shades of ivory, with peach, buff, or pink overtones are much more common. True white is much less common. And getting a true white that is highly reflective (a matter of cell structure I suppose) is even harder. But when you do get it! Some of the tall, peach leaved campanulas will produce a bright, reflective white. A few roses do: the little fairy rose, the straight wild white rugosa, the York rose (alba semi-plena), ‘Casa Blanca’ in oriental lilies along with the true Easter lily (lily longiflorum, which usually isn’t sold to gardeners, but can always be picked up at Easter).

The pure glistening white of cold, new snow? That is the white of those flowers, and a lovely thing it is on a hot, mid 90’s, humid day.

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